President Park Hits Out at Japan in Speech

South Korean President Park Geun-hye marked the country’s day of independence from imperial Japan by hitting out at Tokyo’s recent handling of its history of colonization and war.

The annual address serves as a bellwether for the two neighbors’ relations, which is often strained by disagreements over how Japan remembers its brutal 35-year occupation of the Korean peninsula and the subsequent wartime aggression during World War II.

Associated Press

A South Korean national flag flutters as elementary school students stage a rally to mark the South Korean Liberation Day from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 in Seoul on Aug. 15, 2013.

In her first independence-day speech as president, Ms. Park said Thursday that Japanese politicians were acting against their own people’s wishes for regional peace and prosperity.

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“If politicians don’t follow the hearts of the people but keep to the past, they are ignoring the future,” Ms. Park said in a televised speech.

Japan and South Korea’s ties are at a historic low after top Japanese officials made remarks that could be considered historical revisionism. Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto suggested in May that the wartime sex slaves – the great majority of whom were brought from Korea and China – served voluntarily.

Japan’s closest neighbors–China and South Korea—perceive a lack of atonement from Japanese leaders for war crimes and also object to Japanese versions of textbooks that they say water down these crimes.

South Korea has repeatedly called for Japan to do more to settle the long-running dispute over wartime sex slaves, particularly after Korea’s constitutional court in August 2011 ordered the South Korean government to reopen negotiations with Tokyo.

In her speech, Ms. Park urged “responsible and sincere measures to those wounded by history” from Tokyo, in a veiled reference to so-called “comfort women.”

Seoul seeks more apologies to individual women and revisions to the compensation scheme to acknowledge the government’s role in forced prostitution more explicitly. Tokyo notes a slew of apologies have been made by Japanese prime ministers and other officials for wartime aggression and a 1965 treaty settled all wartime claims in return for payments and other assistance.

There are also territorial disputes over the islets to South Korea’s east, which Ms. Park didn’t mention in her address.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Ms. Park haven’t met at a bilateral summit since they came into office last year and in February, respectively.

Ms. Park also proposed to reunite the families of the two Koreas separated by the Korean War more than six decades ago, taking note of the day’s double significance as the founding of two Koreas.

Ms. Park’s conciliatory gesture towards North Korea comes a day after after the two Koreas agreed to reopen the shuttered joint industrial complex inside the North.

She proposed that the reunion of separated families be held over a local thanksgiving holiday next month.

The reunions are a powerful symbol of reconciliation for the two Koreas, as millions of Koreans were separated from family members by the Korean War and the subsequent division of the peninsula. The last reunion took place in 2010, after which relations between the two countries soured.

Correction & Amplification

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Japan occupied the Korean peninsula for 30 years. It was 35 years.